The subject matter disclosed herein relates to wind farms. More particularly, this disclosure relates to monitoring of friction in wind turbines of wind farms.
The use of wind turbines for power generation is increasing in popularity. As such, more wind turbines, and groups of wind turbines called “wind farms” are being erected at locations subject to adverse weather conditions, for example, off-shore locations or alpine areas. In locations such as these, the wind turbines have an increased likelihood of accumulation of ice and/or snow resulting in increased mass loads and frictional loads on the wind turbines. Further, in some instances, once a wind turbine accumulates ice and/or snow to a certain degree, operation of the wind turbine must be stopped to prevent, for example, an ice or snow throw by the wind turbine. The wind turbine must be stopped until the ice or snow accumulation is reduced. Typically, monitoring of ice accumulation on such wind turbines is accomplished via inspection of individual wind turbines by, for example, a technician or field engineer. In large wind farms containing perhaps hundreds of wind turbines spread over large geographical areas, traditional monitoring of the conditions of individual turbines can be extremely time consuming and costly.